Gavin Chait’s first novel, Lament for the Fallen (Doubleday, £14.99), is a refreshingly different take on the old “alien-falls-to-Earth-bearing-gifts” chestnut. Joshua Ossai lives in the West African village of Ewuru, blessed by a water turbine, up-to-the-minute technology, and an AI known as sphere. This farming existence, however, is frequently threatened by refugees from the war-torn north, and the vicious attacks of ravaging warlords. When Joshua and his fellow villagers see something fall from the sky, they investigate and discover a crashed starship and its pilot, a bizarre metal-skinned alien who can speak their language. Samara is from the world of Achenia, a near-immortal soldier on the run from a space prison known as Tartarus. What follows is an exhilarating story of mutual co‑operation as Joshua nurses Samara back to health so that he can return and destroy Tartarus, and Samara assists the villagers against the brutal warlords. It’s a compulsively readable, life-affirming tale told in direct, lambent prose, and Chait does a masterful job of juxtaposing a traditional African setting with a convincing depiction of a far-future alien society.
Continue reading...via Science fiction | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2ccmFWY
0 comments:
Post a Comment